The artistry will be glittering at the second edition of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival, which runs in London from 12th March to 8th April at the Royal Ballet and Opera, Sadler’s Wells, South Bank Centre and Tate Modern.
Following on from the hugely successful inaugural event in 2022, this iteration of the festival created in partnership with the world-famous French luxury jewellery company features 15 dazzling shows from a whole gamut of different cultures.
Taking place at iconic venues in our capital city, Dance Reflections showcases artists who, in the words of Catherine Renier, President & CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels, have specialised in, “Collaborations with prestigious partners, contributions to major choreographic events, support for emerging and touring artists… These various commitments, in keeping with the values of creation, transmission and education dear to the Maison, all meet the same objective of celebrating contemporary choreographic art.”
Including repertory works, dance workshops, artist forums and awareness-raising initiatives, all emphasising the connections between dance heritage and modern choreography, the festival highlights imaginative ways in which dancers have evolved exciting new…
A tribute to the work of one of the fundamental figures of French Modernist painting
After three years in the making, the Amar Gallery is bringing to London Hélène de Beauvoir: The Woman Destroyed, a unique exhibition featuring paintings and works on paper from the 1950s to 1980s by this French artist, crucial to the feminist movement. Often overshadowed in the past by her older sister, Simone – the groundbreaking […]
Despite being separated in time by nearly 200 years, Sigmar Polke felt a deep admiration for Francisco de Goya. The show at Museo del Prado, Sigmar Polke. Affinities Revealed, explores how the Spanish master influenced the work of the German painter, after he saw for the first time Goya’s Time and the Old Women in […]
In collaboration with Maison Chaumet and curated by botanist Marc Jeanson (former head of the Herbarium at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris and now botanical director of the Jardin Majorelle in Marrakech) Végétal is an herbarium composed of the species present in Chaumet creations. The plants appearing in the exhibition coexist in a variety of landscapes, from forest and foreshore to pond and wheat field.
The exhibition spans 7,000 years of art and science, represented by 400 works of painting, sculpture, textiles, photography and furniture, along with nearly 80 jewellery objects from Chaumet and other houses. As they progress through the chapters, visitors will reconnect with the botanist’s most important working tools: the eye, knowledge and memory.
This botanical look at Chaumet, which began with Salon du Dessin, comes to its culmination in Végétal…
Their immersive journey, arrayed in the Salles Foch and Melpomène of the museum of Beaux-Arts in Paris, brings together a host of “landscape-worlds” showing the plants within recreations of the locations in which they are naturally found: the primitive cave, the hopeful forest, the ancestral foreshore, the reedbed of ponds, farmed fields, flower gardens, and finally mille-fleurs, a space that provides a contemporary look at the living world.
Freed from chronological categorisation, the exhibition encourages visitors to wander freely, passing from reproductions of cave art more than 5,000 years old to two canvases by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, alongside works of Delacroix, Fantin-Latour, Gustave Caillebotte, Claude Monet, Gustave Courbet, Emile Gallé, Odilon Redon and Otto Dix. Also featured are the cyanotypes of English botanist Anna Atkins, the photographs of Brassaï, Dora Maar and Mapplethorpe, and Eva Jospin’s cardboard forest.
The show is also an opportunity to rediscover important female figures, among whom Empress Joséphine holds a special place. Faithful to Maison Chaumet since 1805, the empress was passionate about natural sciences, to the extent of being recognised for her innovative contributions to botany and horticulture. From Eva Jospin’s forest to the sound design created for the occasion by Laurence Equilbey, women feature everywhere in this exhibition, among them Séraphine de Senlis, Yvonne Jean-Haffen, Barbara Dietzsch, Berthe Morisot, Laure Albin-Guillot, the Sœurs Vesque and Luzia Simons.
This is an unprecedented and ambitious immersive experience made possible by the participation of more than 70 lenders: museums, foundations, and galleries such as the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Musée du Louvre, Institut de France, Victoria & Albert Museum, British Museum, Pistoia Musei, Hamburger Kunsthalle, and the Albion Art Collection in Tokyo; alongside private collectors, both domestic and international.
The Summer Exhibition is the world’s largest open submission contemporary art show. It has taken place every year without interruption since 1769. Its history goes back to one of the founding principles of the Royal Academy of Arts: to mount an annual exhibition open to all artists of distinguished merit and to finance the training of young artists in the Royal Academy Schools.
Chaired by the President of the Royal Academy, Rebecca Salter, the Committee members this year will be Royal Academicians Rana Begum, Stephen Chambers, David Mach, Cathie Pilkington, Farshid Moussavi, Grayson Perry, Conrad Shawcross, and Bill Woodrow. Níall McLaughlin and Raan Begun will curate the Architecture Gallery. The Royal Academy invites artists and architects to submit their work for a chance to have it feature in the exhibition. Each year it receives nearly 15,000 entries of which around 1,200 works – in a range of media – will go on display. Most will be for sale, offering visitors an opportunity to purchase original art.
It also gives established and up-and-coming artists the opportunity to exhibit alongside each other…
The theme of this year’s Summer Exhibition is “Climate”, in all its manifestations. Whether it presents as crisis or opportunity, nightmare or memories, or simply our everyday experience of weather, climate is a huge, all-embracing and urgent subject that nobody can afford to ignore any longer.
The members of the Summer Exhibition Committee serve in rotation, ensuring that every year the exhibition has a distinctive character, with each Royal Academician responsible for a particular gallery space. Works are judged democratically on merit and the final selection is made during the eight-day hang within the galleries. Funds raised support the exhibiting artists, the postgraduate students at RA Schools and the work of the Royal Academy. The RA School is the longest established art school in the UK and offers the only free three-year postgraduate programme in Europe.
As the world’s largest open submission contemporary art show, the Summer Exhibition provides a unique platform for artists to highlight their works to an international audience. It comprises a range of media from painting and printmaking to photography, sculpture, architecture, and film. Royal Academicians are automatically entitled to submit up to six works to the show and the rest of the exhibition features work by those invited by the committee and external entrants.
Talulah Riley’s dystopian tale of feminism, love, and betrayal
Talulah Riley is internationally renowned as an actress having taken part in blockbuster films like Pride & Prejudice (2005) and St Trinian’s (2007, 2009), and TV series such as Pistol, currently showing on the Disney platform. However, Talulah’s talent goes well beyond the realm of filming sets. She is a critically acclaimed author whose first book, Acts of Love (2016), with its intelligent approach to “idyllic love”, thrilled readers worldwide by challenging and questioning established views on love and relationships. Her second book, The Quickening, is equally bold. Set in a not-too-distant future, we find a society completely ruled by women, organised in a way that one can’t help but think of the darkest times of the former Soviet Union… just scarier.
After millennia of being subjugated by men, women have risen to absolute power, led by Dana Mayer, who had been planning a new world since her student years at Oxford. In Dana’s world, men are totally emasculated, children are raised away from their parents… and freedoms are severely limited. On the other side, we find Arthur Alden, who has been in love with Dana since he met her at Oxford in 2015, but who hates the world she has created.
The Quickening is a riveting tale of an utterly scary society led solely by women. Think the former Soviet Union… a hundred times worse.
The story develops as an exploration of gender, politics and society, with a subtle humour running underneath, which reveals Talulah’s intelligence and fine analytical skills. As she told me when I interviewed her for the front cover of our spring issue 2022 , “I think asking questions is more important than getting answers.” The Quickening does exactly that, it asks questions about gender equality, fear, misuse of power, even idolatry.
Speaking to Talulah about the main characters in the world of The Quickening, she says of Dana, “She is supposed to be as deadly a despot as ever existed; ruthless and ideologically-driven.” On the other hand, Arthur serves as the voice of the oppressed. “I wanted there to be recognisable moments from Art’s experience that could parallel life now – for example, when he panics because he can hear a woman’s high heeled shoes behind him and wonders why she would be following him so closely if she was harmless. Fear is something that is discussed a lot in our world: of men walking too closely behind women and not understanding that is something that can inspire fear.”
It is evident that is a society dominated by angst. The third main voice in the book is that of Victoria, a singer-songwriter turned pop-star by a powerful and callous producer who keeps her for years in an abusive relationship until Dana “rescues” her and makes her the culture poster idol of her new world. “Victoria allows us to see someone that has been intimately involved in creating the regime,” explains Talulah, “but regrets her involvement and doesn’t know how to escape. She is as much a prisoner as Art. I also wanted her to articulate horrific memories of the time-before, i.e., our world.”
Talulah Riley touches critical topics like relationships, gender equality and society order in such an intelligent and thought-provoking way that I can’t wait to read her third book. – Julia Pasarón
Each chapter starts with a quote from the “holy book” of this society, called The Quickening. Talulah uses these quotes to bring attention to how society has mistreated women throughout history and the absurdity of it all. I can’t help but sharing with you a couple of them:
“Men, who cannot birth the species, compensate by propagating ideas.” (page 68).
“Historically, fashion has been used as a weapon against women, whether by constricting our movements and personal freedoms with corsets, high heels etc., or by pitting us as sexually competitive objects.” (page 126).
I find Talulah’s incisive comments original and thought-provoking. As a storyteller, she is agile and engaging, there is no artifice in her narrative or over-styling, she lets her writing do the talking. I believe this is a book that everybody should read, especially anyone who is exploring gender roles, fear and the absurdity of social order, not just in history, but also in the society in which we live today.
The Quickening is available to buy online at the following retailers:
As a humanitarian and environmental activist, Lily had for a long time a controversial relationship with gems extracted from under the skin of our planet. In this interview, she is joined by the founder of Skydiamond, Dale Vince and photographer Rankin, to explain to our editor Julia Pasarón how we can turn the industry into an agent for positive change in the efforts to combat climate change.
Diamonds are made of pure carbon, and thanks to pollution, we have plenty of it in our atmosphere. Lily Cole learnt about the company making diamonds out of thin air – Skydiamond – when researching for her book, Who Cares Wins: How to Protect the Planet you Love. “Diamonds are synonymous with beauty,” declares Lily, “but for many years the mining of jewels has been a very ugly business.” Lily’s concern is not new. As early as 2005, she announced that she would no longer model for De Beers after being alerted to the situation of the Kalahari Bushmen being evicted from their lands in Botswana.
Being able to mine the sky represents the perfect metaphor of how we ought to be evolving every industry in the face of the climate crisis…
– Lily Cole
Behind the scenes at Lily’s shoot by Rankin for Skydiamond.
“Being able to mine the sky represents the perfect metaphor of how we ought to be evolving every industry in the face of the climate crisis: carbon negative by design; a solution rather than a problem. That’s why I became such a supporter of Skydiamond’s mission,” she says. In fact, for quite some time, Lily has been calling for an end to traditional diamond mining and advocating for sustainable fashion. “Scientists tell us we have to not only reduce carbon emissions, but also remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,” she explains. “There are many ways to do this, from nature itself to artificial trees and other high-tech solutions; mining the sky instead of the Earth to produce diamonds is one of them. Such a crazy and amazing concept!”
If I am going to help sell something, it has to be something I believe in…
– Lily Cole
This is the over-simplified mental process that Dale Vince, founder of Skydiamond, followed to create the world’s first and only conflict-free diamonds made entirely from renewable energy. Dale has always been interested in sustainability. He is what we could call a green-tech pioneer. Dale is Chairman of Forest Green Rovers, recognised by United Nations as the world’s first carbon-neutral football club, and, before Skydiamond, he founded Ecotricity, a provider of fully sustainable energy.
I’d look at cars and wondered how much fuel we burnt in our everyday lives…
– Dale Vince
Dale’s interest in eco-friendly businesses started when he was a kid, when he spent a lot of time wondering about the sustainability of our way of life. “I’d look at cars and wondered how much fuel we burnt in our everyday lives,” he shares. This was the 1970s, a fuel thirsty decade if there has ever been one. As Lego Technic didn’t exist yet, Dale took to building his own stuff using batteries, which at the time were expensive, didn’t last long and had to be thrown away. “It all seemed to me a terrible waste of materials.”
To read this interview in full, please order your copy of our new issueHere.
There are few figures in modern times who are as recognisable around the globe as Queen Elizabeth II, the world’s longest serving monarch who is now celebrating her Platinum Jubilee. That recognition can partly be attributed to the central role her carefully considered wardrobe has played over the decades she has spent in the spotlight. The Queen has fine-tuned a style that has helped her navigate her position diplomatically, culturally and socially. It has defined her reign and that of the modern British monarchy.
Ever since her coronation was televised in June 1953 – the year after she ascended the throne – the Queen’s public, and to some extent private, life has been recorded on camera. She has been served by 14 prime ministers and seen 13 US president elected during her reign. As the most well-travelled British monarch in history, she has logged visits to a remarkable 117 different countries and thousands of official engagements during those seven decades. During that time, she has established a blueprint, the gold standard of what it is to be and look like a queen. As Karl Lagerfeld, a confirmed royalist, once said: “She is never ridiculous; she is flawless. For this job in our day, she is perfect.”
The Queen has always been mindful of her position, sensitive to the mood of the times…
Princess Elizabeth with the infant Prince Charles and his sponsors during his Christening, 15th December 1948.
Her style has evolved from a wasp-waisted young princess embarking on her first grand tour of Commonwealth countries in 1953 to an elegant elder stateswoman with a distinctive style and penchant for bold colour statements. In 2016, the Royal Collection Trust held the exhibition Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style at Buckingham Palace, which was viewed as a grand historical lookbook of her wardrobe choices for her public and personal life during her reign.
Decisions revolved around her personal belief that people had come to see the Queen and therefore she should stand out, hence her choice of solid hues – red, yellow, orange, neon green, fuchsia and, of course, royal blue – with matching eye-catching hats that never hid her face. She deftly navigated her diplomatic role during royal tours choosing colours that may show recognition of national sensibilities or pay tribute through jewels and embroidered motifs, such as national flowers that were symbolic to her hosts. On a visit to California in 1983, she wore a Hardy Amies gown embroidered with the state’s flower: orange poppies. A brooch could deliver a similar message, such as the New Zealand silver fern she was given by Lady Allum, wife of the then mayor of Auckland on Christmas Day 1953, worn on that date and subsequently loaned to the Duchess of Cambridge in 2014 for her trip to New Zealand and Australia.
Her witty use of jewels and colours would be steeped in messaging, such as the brooches given to her by the Duke of Edinburgh, which would be worn on significant dates in their personal lives, such as birthdays and anniversaries. There was also her controversial “Brexit” outfit, worn to Parliament in 2017, in which a blue hat with yellow-centred flowers seemed to echo the EU flag. It is hard to imagine that this was a coincidence.
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip disembark from a British Airways Concorde,1991
The Queen has always been mindful of her position and sensitive to the mood of the times. For her wedding to Philip Mountbatten in 1947 – during a period of great austerity just after the war – she famously saved her ration cards to pay for her dress. Not that the public would have cared as they lapped up every detail about the beautiful, embroidered ivory duchess satin gown that Sir Normal Hartnell designed for her.
Royal couturiers Hartnell and Sir Hardy Amies designed most of her wardrobe during her early years, from the pretty floral 1950s dresses of her early tours to the more formal tailoring that came later. She preferred simpler, feminine clothes, avoiding the pitfalls of the Duchess of Windsor’s rigorous style. As Amies explained to the Sunday Telegraph in 1997: “There’s always something cold and rather cruel about chic clothes, which she wants to avoid.”
While Britain was swinging in the 1960s, dressing to the tune of Glam Rock a decade later, or sporting Sloane Ranger uniforms in the 1980s, the Queen has carefully nurtured a friendly, classic look with her floral print dresses, colourful coats, matching hats and no-nonsense boxy handbags (by Launer), gloves (by Cornelia James) and black patent shoes (by Anello & Davide). Hartnell rather snippily told a New York Times reporter at the beginning of her reign, who was eager to learn about the 27-year-old Queen’s Commonwealth tour in 1953: “The Queen and Queen Mother do not want to be fashion setters. That’s left to other people with less important work to do.”
However, the Queen always knew when it was time to dial up the glamour and dazzle her hosts with her vast array of jewels and tiaras, embroidered gowns and long gloves. She always looked regal and elegant, no matter what. No one has a vault of tiaras, diamond necklaces and bracelets quite like the Queen is, although she is never without her triple string of pearls during the day. Her evening dresses were always designed with round necklines that showed off her royal jewels and support to hold the weight of Royal insignias and Order of the Garter, while long white gloves were encircled with diamonds. And, of course, the Queen has always been partial to lipstick, a deep red is her signature.
Those little details stand out…
Since 2002, Angela Kelly has been personal assistant and senior dresser to the Queen and is widely regarded for her subtly updated ensembles – slimmer cuts, daring colour – even encouraging the Queen to wear knee-high boots, a sequin dress and feathered hat to attend a hockey game in Slovakia in 2008 – that have since been worn to Sandringham Church. Those little details stand out.
Of course, she has an off-duty wardrobe for Balmoral and Sandringham of tweeds, tartan skirts, wax jackets, Hèrmes headscarves – cus- tom-made or vintage, which she would wear when she was out riding her beloved horses. However, as fashions come and go when she is on duty, the Queen has forged her own indelible image that will endure.
Vacheron Constantin celebrates ancient civilisations
I’ve recently had the privilege to speak to Christian Selmoni, Style and Heritage Director at Vacheron Constantin about four stunning watches it has created for its Métiers d’Art collection as part of its partnership with Musée de Louvre. In 2019, Vacheron Constantin partnered up with the Louvre in Paris and notably participated in 2020 to a charity auctions sale curated by Christie’s and Drout to raise funds for a new 1,200m2 space onsite fully devoted to education. Simultaneously, it had started to work with the Louvre on the creation of this series of stunning timepieces, inspired by four of the greatest civilisations in the history of mankind: the Persian Empire of Darius the Great, the golden age of Ancient Egypt, the Hellenistic period of Ancient Greece and the rise to power of Augustus, the first Roman emperor.
To these civilisations we owe the invention of writing, the birth of democracy and philosophy, monumental architecture and incomparable artistic achievements. Our languages, customs, politics… even our vision of the world originate from them.
“At Vacheron Constantin we love celebrating human adventure and have always been very close to the world of arts and culture,” shares Christian. This Métiers d’Art series is an excellent example of this affinity. Myriad decorative techniques have been used to depict on the dials four masterpieces held at the Louvre Paris, representing each of the aforementioned civilisations. Christian points out that “building the dials of these watches was very complicated. They are made of different layers to make them three-dimensional and each involves very difficult artisan techniques.”
The cultural symbols were created in the form of sculpted gold appliques. In addition, the watches incorporate a subdial adorned with motifs drawn from decorative arts of the time. Texts representative of the periods concerned are reproduced in their original form – cuneiform writing, hieroglyphs, ancient Greek and Latin – by metallisation on the sapphire crystal (the last layer of the watch) bearing the sculpted applique.
At Vacheron Constantin we love the world of arts and culture and celebrating human adventure…
– Christian Selmoni
Depiction of the east facade of the Louvre, inspired by an 18th century litography.
Needless to say, reproducing such works of art on a less than 40mm circle presented a few challenges to the master artisans at Vacheron Constantin. The techniques Christian refers to are some of the most complex known in artistic craftmanship, including champlevé and grisaille enam- elling. The first one consists of creating cavities in which the enamels are applied with the successive layers being fired in a kiln. The second means the application of white enamel touches to an underlying dark coating, also firing each of the layers.
Another technique used here and rarely seen in the world of watchmaking is stone marquetry, which forms patterns with fragments of coloured stones leaving tiny spaces between the components to give relief and depth to the composition. Stone micro-mosaic, which is even rarer in this industry, was used to assemble the almost-microscopic pieces in a way that renders the joints that seal them practically invisible. Last, the pounced ornament engraving technique used in these watches for the carved gold sconces – known as ramolayage, is a trompe l’oeil particularly suitable for creating the illusion of depth of field.
To power these pieces, Vacheron Constantin has chosen its self-winding Manufacture Calibre 2460 G4/2, which features four discs indicating the hours, minutes, day and date. “The apertures for reading the time and calendar indications are symmetrically posi- tioned around the dial periphery,” explains Christian, “to leave a vast field of expression for the artisans without any hands to disturb the view of these miniature masterpieces.”
On the back of the movement, beating at a rate of 4Hz and comprising 237 compo- nents, there is a 22K rotor in gold. “The oscillating weight features a depiction of the east facade of the Louvre,” Christian points out, “inspired by an 18th-century lithograph by Louis Le Vau and Claude Perrault.” Each of these timepieces deserve individual attention, so I asked Christian to walk me through them.
Lion de Darius – Persian Empire (559 – 330 BC)
The Frieze of Lions, made of siliceous glazed bricks bound with lime mortar, was located in the first courtyard of the palace of Darius the Great in Susa, the capital of the Persian Achaemenid empire, which stretched from present-day Pakistan to the shores of the Black Sea, and from the steppes of central Asia to Egypt and Libya, uniting the oldest civilisations in the Middle East. The lion, symbol of power, was an important part of Persian iconography and before them, Assyrian and Babylonian. Darius the Great was not just King of Kings, but also an administrative genius. His great building projects and his benevolence toward the diverse peoples under his sovereignty fortified his vast empire and enhanced trade throughout.
The frieze was particularly challenging for the artisans, who bravely chose stone marquetry (turquoise and mochaite jasper) to accentuate the realistic look of the glazed bricks that were originally affixed to the background wall, and showed their nerve by choosing fragments with veins (even more delicate). The lion itself is hand-engraved in gold with some patina to create the effect of time passing. “We had to order three sets of stones to be able to finish the background,” comments Christian.
Also at the Palace of Darius, the Frieze of Archers is recreated surrounding the dial, by the juxtaposition of triangles made of engraved metal and champlevé enamel with “ageing” inclusions. The cuneiform script engraved on the sapphire crystal is taken from a tablet inscribed in Old Persian.
Grand sphinx de Tanis – Ancient Egyptian Empire (2035-1680 BC)
A royal symbol, the sphinx is a hybrid comprising the body of a lion and a human head wearing the Nemes – the royal headdress – and the beard of sovereigns. All the power of the pharaoh is expressed through this fabulous animal, linked to the Middle Kingdom (approx. 2035-1680 BC), considered the golden age of Egypt. It was probably carved for King Amenemhet II, whose cartouche it bears. Other kings appropriated it by affixing their own: Apophis, Merneptah and Chechonq I. In this watch, the sapphire crystal is engraved with a transcription of the cartouche of the pharaoh Merneptah (1213 – 1203 BC), son and successor of Ramses II under the heading: “The king of Upper and Lower Egypt Ba-en-Ra-mery-Amon. The son of Ra Merneptah who is satisfied with the Ma’at, endowed with eternal life.”
The decorative dial elements are inspired by the necklace depicted on the carton- nage coffin of Nakht-khonsou-irou (22nd dynasty), trimmed with petals in champlevé enamel sprinkled with inclusions “to give the outer frieze an aged appearance” explains Christian, “under the necklace you can see a winged hawk with a ram’s head and the plumage is also done in champlevé enamel. The deep colour of the blue and black enamels used required six firings in the kiln.”
For the engraver of the carved gold applique representing the head of the sphinx, rendering the large false beard within such a small space was a particular challenge. The master artisan had to work in relief using the pounced ornament technique, despite the thinness of the plate, before accentuating the depth effect by patinating the material with a blowtorch and then by hand. The main dial is made of enamel whose deep colour, a mixture of blue and black enamels, is obtained after six firings in the kiln.
This statue of Victory (Niké in Greek), a winged goddess resting on the prow of a warship, was discovered in 1863 on the island of Samothrace in the Aegean Sea. Excavated from a sanctuary dedicated to the Great Gods widely worshipped through- out the Greek world, it depicts an offering linked to the battles of Side and Myonnesus in 190 and 189 BC. These two battles saw the kingdom of Pergamon, allied with the Rhodians and the Romans, triumph over its traditional enemies, the kingdoms of Antioch and Macedonia.
Christian points out the difficulty for the engraver to reproduce the subtleties of marble carving seen in the drapery of the original statue, which seems ruffled by the wind. The centre of the main dial is enam- elled in a very rare brown, which requires six firings and the periphery features grisaille enamelling depicting bas-relief sculpted Greek ceramics and vases. The sapphire crystal of this watch is engraved with a dedication to the Great Gods discovered in the Temple of Samothrace, listing Athenian initiates guided by Socrates.
Buste d’ Auguste – Roman Empire, Julio-Claudians (27 BC – 68 AD)
Octavian Augustus is considered the first Roman emperor. After defeating Mark Antony and Cleopatra in Egypt, he ended a long period of civil wars marking the end of the Republic.
The Julio-Claudian dynasty, of which he was the first “prince”, ended with the suicide of Nero in 68AD. The oak wreath he wears in the original sculpture was a distinction awarded to him by the Senate in 27BC, when he became the principate or first citizen of Rome. In this carved gold applique, the master artisans at Vacheron Constantin echo the curling locks held by the oak crown in the fibula that secures the drape of the cape to the breast plate. Christian points out, “Notice how the bust is off-centre to avoid a medallion effect.” Very subtle, very cool.
The centre of the dial is enamelled in blue-green, while its periphery is adorned with stone micro-mosaic. Any error in the positioning and gluing of the tiny hard stone fragments would have required re-enamelling the Grand Feu dial used as a base. Seven different types of stones – 660 pieces in all – were needed to compose this micro-mosaic: quartzite, cacholong, dumor- tierite, mochaite, red jasper, grossular, and red aventurine. For the outer frieze in white gold, featuring line engraving and pati- nated by firing in the kiln, another mosaic served as inspiration: this one depicting animals playing musical instruments, also from the fourth century. The sapphire crystal is engraved in ancient Latin with an invocation to the emperor Augustus found on a Roman stele in Algeria.
The watches in this collection feature hours, minutes, day of the week and date in apertures and are available in 18K rose and white gold, with a 42mm diameter case, in a limited edition of five each, all of them Hallmark of Geneva certified.
Breitling celebrates Aurora 7’s flight and recovery of Carpenter’s Cosmonaute.
Splashdown!
Aurora 7 was four hours, 32 minutes and 47 seconds into its flight, travelling at over 17,000 miles per hour, orbiting over Hawaii for the third time when the gyro warning light appeared on Scott Carpenter’s control panel, requiring the manual firing of the retro rockets for re-entry. The mission up to that point was considered a great success, but instrumentation error and a partially distracted astronaut led to the splashdown being considerably off-target, along with a waterlogged watch.
Sixty years ago today, on May 24th, 1962, after a trouble-free countdown, Carpenter (aboard Aurora 7) lifted off into space at 07.45 EST (12.45 UTC). His was the first scientific flight and he became the first American astronaut to eat solid food in space. Inadvertently Carpenter identified the mysterious “fireflies” observed by John Glenn during Friendship 7 as particles of frozen liquid dislodged from the outside of the spacecraft when he bumped the wall of his capsule near the window.
Partly because Carpenter had been distracted watching the fireflies, he began his landing preparations late. As the timing mechanism on the spacecraft for the retro rockets had also malfunctioned, he had to align the spacecraft manually. Doing so, he fell behind in his checklist of other items, so that when the switch was made to the fly-by-wire control, the manual system remained engaged, and using both together for 10 minutes resulted in wasted fuel. Aurora 7 overshot the re-entry point and splashed down a considerable distance from the intended location.
Knowing that the recovery vessels might take some time to get to him, and aware of the danger of Aurora 7 potentially sinking, Carpenter made his way out through the neck of the spacecraft. In doing so he inadvertently knocked and damaged the seal on his Breitling Cosmonaute. He inflated his life raft, climbed onto it and awaited rescue. After nearly an hour of searching, Carpenter was located in an area northeast of Puerto Rico; but it took three more for the rescue helicopter to reach him. While the astronaut had suffered no ill effects from the impact and the time at sea, it was to prove fatal to the damaged watch.
First Contact
Malcolm Scott Carpenter, a naval aviator, was selected as one of Mercury Seven, America’s first astronauts, selected to fly spacecraft for Project Mercury and immortalised in Tom Wolfe’s book: The Right Stuff and Philip Kaufman’s movie of the same name. Their selection was the subject of a much publicised and rigorous search, and the finalists were announced at a press conference on April 9th, 1959.
Back in the middle of the 20th century, the astronauts who were part of the space programme were also required to undertake other tasks outside of flying the capsule. As it was not known what the pilot would require or need in terms of anything when flying in space, it was very much a case of necessity being the mother of invention, a voyage into the unknown.
Carpenter, along with the other six astronauts, oversaw the development of the Mercury spacecraft. Apart from being required to fly the capsule, each had an assigned speciality; Carpenter was given responsibility for instrumentation and the onboard navigational equipment. By way of other examples, Alan Shepard focused on the recovery of the astronauts upon landing and egress from the capsule, and John Glenn focused on optimizing the cockpit and the flight simulator.
Scott Carpenter had encountered the Breitling Navitimer when flying with the RAAF (Royal Australian Airforce) in 1960. When tasked with instrumentation for the Mercury capsule, he worked in cooperation with Breitling to change the basic Navitimer used by the RAAF with a simplified tachymeter scale, a wider bezel and a 24-hour dial. The reasons were simple. When flying in space there was only a need to consider the total time taken and measured in hours, minutes and seconds. The wider bezel was to help move the tachymeter with the astronaut gloves on, and the reduced scale would help improve legibility and remove unnecessary information.
The Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute was the first purpose-designed and Swiss-made chronograph in space, worn by the man who principally commissioned it. The watch became an essential piece of flight equipment for the astronauts, as when you are hurtling around the world at over 17,000 miles per hour, every second truly does count.
Philip Kaufman’sThe Right Stuff (1983) was nominated for 8 Oscars and won 4.
During Aurora 7’s flight, Carpenter and Mission Control were constantly checking the capsule clock against the watch and the time at Cape Canaveral, Florida; the transcript shows that the former was continually one to two seconds away from CAPCOM. More to point, when the astronaut delayed the firing of the retro rockets for re-entry, every second delayed was five miles added to the trajectory error. Carpenter was three seconds late. The problem was compounded, as the difference in trajectory would add considerably more miles to the splashdown point on Earth’s surface. Carpenter overshot his planned mark and ended up 250 miles from the intended location.
Lost in Space
Once the rescue helicopter landed on the USS Intrepid, Carpenter noticed that the watch no longer worked. It was sent back to Breitling for repair. On seeing the extent of the damage, Breitling simply sent a new one back as well as supplying the same Cosmonaute to some of the other Mercury Seven. John Glenn’s came up for sale at auction back in 2019 and was acquired by Gregory Breitling.
Scott Carpenter’s original Cosmonaute was simply placed in a watchmaker’s bench draw at the factory. Nothing more was to be done to restore it or to try and make it work. For all intents and purposes, it was lost to the world and was left to deteriorate and corrode. When the ownership of Breitling was transferred, it was retained by the Breitling family. Sixty years to the day since it first flew into space, Breitling unveiled Scott Carpenter’s untouched watch, alongside John Glenn’s original, and a new commemorative edition of the Cosmonaute.
Scott Carpenter’s original Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute was worn during his Mercury-Atlas 7 mission in 1962.
Commemorative Edition
To celebrate the anniversary of Carpenter’s flight, and Breitling’s ascent as the first purpose-designed and Swiss-made chronograph in space, a new commemorative edition has been released. For the most part, the limited edition stays true to the original Cosmonaute design, while adding some elements to show that this is a watch that honours that first flight.
The same all-black 24-hour dial and reduced form tachymeter are kept, but the watch is now slightly smaller (at 41mm diameter) with a platinum bezel that is fluted (rather than beaded). The commemorative edition also features a sapphire back that provides a window on the B02 movement with its special bridge engravings to mark the occasion: the words “Carpenter,” “Aurora 7,” and “3 orbits around the Earth,” along with the Mercury space capsule. The commemorative edition is limited to 362 numbered pieces that recognise the number of orbits made by Carpenter (3) and the year in which he flew (’62). The watch is available on a black alligator strap or a seven-row stainless-steel bracelet.
Caseback of the Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute Limited Edition.
Epilogue
While Carpenter denied ever causing the fault, and the post-incident report confirmed that the instrument failure had nothing to do with the astronaut, the head of CAPCOM: Alexander Kraft, Jr. (who had been against Carpenter from the start) came to the conclusion that it was pilot error. Kraft swore that Carpenter would not fly in space again and in fact, in his biography published almost 40 years later, the chapter on the Aurora 7 mission was titled: “The Man Malfunctioned”. In a letter to The New York Times, Carpenter called the book “vindictive and skewed”, and offered a different assessment: “In space, things happen so fast that only the pilot knows what to do, and even ground control can’t help.”
With little prospect of reaching the space again, and perhaps as a result of his spending time on the ocean waiting to be picked up by the USS Intrepid, Carpenter changed his career to exploring the seas as an aquanaut. He took a leave of absence from NASA to join the U.S. Navy SEALAB project, although during training he suffered injuries that grounded him, making him unavailable for further spaceflights.
“The historian’s special contribution is the discovery of the manifold shapes of time. The aim of the historian, regardless of his specialty in erudition, is to portray time. He is committed to the detection and description of the shape of time.” George Kubler, The Shape of Time, 1962.
“And when he has conquered all the depths of space, and all the mysteries of time, still he will be beginning … “H. G. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, 1933.
Science fiction never doubted that the wristwatch had a future. Even if the future was far more technologically advanced, with intergalactic space travel or killer androids, a watch was still a necessity. Such a belief was rational as even into the 1970s, when the quartz era was firmly under way, astronauts were still issued with a mechanical Omega Speedmaster. There was a trust in the known analogue technology despite the availability of arguably superior timekeeping movements, of which Bulova’s electronic “Tuning Fork” and the Beta 21 (Omega Marine Chronometer) come to mind.
Galaxy Science Fiction magazine, October 1951, with cover illustration by Richard Arbib.
There is no constant to time. The question of what the watch of the future would look like now, given that “now” and the “future” are constantly changing terms, equally evolves over time. What laid ahead in 1950 looked very different to what does today, and the influence of science fiction on design has metamorphosed accordingly.
Horology’s first foray into the science fiction world of tomorrow was with industrial designer Richard Arbib. The 1950s were a brave new Earth for what the celestial future could be. Magazines were dedicated to the subject of what space exploration would hold; spaceship captains that starred in their own comics were as numerous as regular airline pilots. Given the collective amount of cosmic villainy being perpetrated beyond Earth, it was surprising there was any form of civilisation – let alone watchmakers – left on it at all.
Richard Arbib could claim credits both as a science fiction artist and as a designer. A regular cover illustrator for Galaxy Science Fiction magazine, he was also commissioned by the American Motors Corporation (AMC) to create a unique futuristic car for the Hudson Motor Car Company. Arbib called the main design theme “V-line” styling where the “V” form was used throughout the vehicle. More importantly, he designed the concept Astra-Gnome “Time and Space Car” which featured a celestial time-zone clock permitting actual flight-type navigation.
Hamilton Ventura previously owned by Elvis Presley, circa 1958.
In the mid-1950s the US watch manufacturer Hamilton hired Arbib to design futuristic watches for their new battery powered electric movement. The Ventura had an asymmetric “V” design that became iconic from the very start. Elvis famously swapped his diamond studded Omega for one. The watch looks as futuristic today as it did in 1957 when it first went on sale. Still in production, the Ventura was used as standard issue for the agents in the comedic science fiction movie Men in Black.
Hamilton was not alone in hiring outside designers to produce a new futuristic look to their watches. Even the paragon of Swiss watchmaking, Patek Philippe, hired a young Gilbert Albert in the same decade to produce modern timepieces in keeping with the age. With names like “Flying Saucer”, “Asymétrie”, and “Futuriste”, the watches were similar in form to the new aesthetics being produced by Arbib in the U.S. Although it is not known if Albert was influenced by science fiction, in 1958 Patek released the ref. 3412, which was remarkably similar to the Hamilton Ventura.
The beginning of the 20th century had been the last time watch case design had changed, thanks to the Art Deco movement and revolutionaries like Louis Cartier and the underground design “dilettantes” at the ateliers of Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin. It was a peaceful coup that won the hearts and minds of a new consumer. A similar trend took place in the science orientated society of the 1950s. The dictatorship of the norm, where watches were round, rectangular or tonneau, was being shifted. A “V” was always an indication of time’s arrow into the future, and Arbib and Albert had shown the way forward to the horological world.
Hamilton Odyssey 2001, with an analogue display for the time and a digital readout for all other functions.
Hamilton returned to the avant-garde of science fiction when they were asked by Stanley Kubrick to develop a watch for 2001:A Space Odyssey. The result was a complex combination of a curved rectangular case with an analogue display for the time and a digital readout for all other factors. The functions went as far as what would now be called a smartwatch. However, what appeared in the film was too expensive to put into production, so Hamilton issued the “Odyssee 2001” based on the analogue part of the watch depicted in the movie. The design was still futuristic with its unusual wedge-shaped case and dial layout.
By the latter part of the 20th century, the science fiction watch was no longer an imaginative shape for a possible future, but rather a realised object that had to be part of tomorrow’s aesthetic as an addition to the wrist of elite troops dealing battling xenomorphic aliens on distant planets or killer android robots that had to stop the countdown on earth exterminating event.
Giorgetto Giugiaro designed the above Seiko for the 1986 blockbuster, Aliens. The watch was worn by main character Ripley.
Aliens, released in 1986, takes place in the year 2179, when humans have encountered rather aggressive extra-terrestrial lifeforms. The future watch in this instance was Giorgetto Giugiaro’s designed Seiko worn by Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and Bishop (Lance Henriksen). Giugiaro is more famous for his angular style of car design and was not influenced by what the science fiction future should look like. In keeping with his style, the two watches in question were reference 7A28-6000 and 7A28-7000, the latter being worn by Ripley. Made of aluminium and steel, ref. 7A28-7000 boasted an asymmetric offset case and a futuristic bracelet. The pushers to operate the chronograph function were contained in a rectangular protrusion on the right side.
In Terminator: The Rise of the Machines (released in 2003), Arnold Schwarzenegger helped design an oversized Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore that was discovered by the cyborg in the sun visor of a truck. Understandably, the killer robot has little use for a mechanical watch and sets it aside. With a diameter of 51mm, the three-part Royal Oak case had two chronograph pushers in the band with lock levers and a protected crown, so the countdown wouldn’t be interrupted once started.
Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore T3 designed for the movie Terminator 3 The Rise of the Machines
In the same way that the outline of the WWI Renault tank was Louis Cartier’s muse in reshaping the gentleman’s wristwatch, the imagined machines of a galaxy far far away provide ideas for contemporary designs. Both Martin Frei of Urwerk and Max Busser at MB&F acknowledge the influence that fictional spaceships have on their creativity.
You cannot help but look at the new Urwerk UR-100 from above and see the outline of Star Wars Millennium Falcon. For Martin Frei, who grew up with genre-changing science fiction movies like Star Wars, Alien, and Bladerunner, the films are a time machine that allows a view of the past and the future in the present moment. He went further and explained that “All Urwerk watches are inspired by science fiction. A science fiction film that looks into the future is related to time. But it is also the idea to imagine technology that interests me. If you create contemporary avant-garde watches, they will look as if they were from a history of the future. You have to look for new shapes and new concepts.”
If you look at the new Urwerk UR-100 from above it is difficult not to see the outline of Star Wars Millennium Falcon.
In designing Horological Machine No 6 (HM6), aka “Space Pirate”, Max Busser referenced the spaceship design from the anime version of Captain Future. Max acknowledges the effect the past has on his creative present. Also a veteran of the late 20th century cinematic big bang in science fiction, the memories from an impressionable childhood have left an indelible mark on his horological machines. HM6 started with “a certain amount of sketching and a large amount of imagination. It was the two spaceships with their two spheres connected by a central link that inspired our design with the tourbillon at the centre.”
On the left, MB&F HM6 in steel showing the dual Captain Future spaceship configuration (right).
Another futuristic watch is the DeBethune Dream Watch 5. While some people have noted the similarity of the design to some fictional spaceship forms, Denis Flageollet was quick to point out that he hadn’t been inspired by a particular movie or comic, but rather by the possibilities of time travel, which he refers to as “cosmic inspiration.”
DeBethune Dream Watch 5 with its futuristic styling.
The relationship between science fiction and watch design has changed. No one now believes that a mechanical watch will accompany Captain Dan Dare in his journeys to the stars and beyond. We realise that it will be a wrist-bound subservient satellite of some other device and will relay all manner of information, as well as the time. However, the allure of designing watches for space travel has lost none of its lustre. It is still a flight of fancy into the unknown. Konstantin Chaykin designed and produced the MarsConqueror, which embodies the realisation that time will be different on a new planet and that there will be a new measure of the “day” (however defined) and the units of time within it. Mars measures time in SOLs that are approximately 40 minutes longer than an Earth day. The past of space exploration is embedded in the Mars Conqueror, with design ques from the Vostok rockets that once carried the hopes of the socialist space future into the stars. While we can dream, we can let our imagination run wild and enrichen the world of horological creativity.
My thanks to Martin Frei, Max Busser and Denis Flageollet for their help and advice in researching this article.
Opening picture: Stylised concept art for the Richard Arbib Astra-Gnome car, circa 1956.
A collaborator for everyone from Sir David Attenborough to Coldplay, the renowned and award-winning composer Ilan Eshkeri will release the new album Space Station Earth on May 13th via Sony Masterworks. The album will be accompanied by an immersive, out-of-this-earth tour created in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA), which will debut at London’s Royal Albert Hall on May 15th.
The video for the first single of the album, “Aurora”, sets his beautifully touching and expansive music to dazzling footage of the aurora borealis (Northern Lights). In Ilan’s own words, “Seeing the aurora borealis is an epic experience and I wanted to express the scale and majesty of it in music. The astronauts have also shot mind-blowing footage of the aurora borealis, which we use in the concert, so until space tourism becomes an everyday occurrence, ‘Space Station Earth’ is the closest you’ll get.”
Watch the video for “Aurora” here:
Space Station Earth uses Ilan’s evocative blend of modern electronic and vintage acoustic instrumentation to convey through music the extraordinary emotional voyage that astronauts experience in space. The project began when astronaut Tim Peake contacted Ilan to say that he was a fan of his work. That initial connection eventually resulted in the artist being granted unprecedented access by the ESA, which provided him with an invaluable source of inspiration for the album.
About the experience, Ilan says, “I got to see rocket launches, a zero-gravity flight, and a chance to get lost in their video archive, as well as the opportunity to get advice from ESA scientists and astronauts. I started creating the music with synthesisers and then I started to add strings, brass and choir to deliver the awe-inspiring, epic scale that only an orchestra can. I never imagined I’d have the privilege of collaborating with astronauts to try to impart the experience of space travel through music, of looking out into the darkness of space and back upon our beautiful and fragile planet.”
Ilan Eshkeri’s diverse portfolio includes having created music for British astronaut Tim Peake’s Principia mission to the International Space Station.
The Space Station Earth live show is a music-led, multimedia experience that allows the audience to see through the eyes of astronauts and to contemplate our planet, the stars and the exploration of the universe. For this unique show, Ilan’s music will be complemented by images he shot at various ESA locations, as well as rare footage filmed by astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
Tim Peake comments, “There aren’t many words that can truly describe the beauty of seeing Earth from space and Space Station Earth attempts to do this by using music and video to capture the emotion of human spaceflight and exploration. Featuring previously unreleased footage from ESA astronauts and accompanied by a live orchestra, the show creates a unique experience, one that celebrates space and unites the audience, just as exploration unites humankind.”
Tim Peake during his 4-hour 43-minute spacewalk
These stunning images will be projected across three massive screens together with a stunning light show to create an incredible audience experience. Without dialogue or narration, audiences can expect to lose themselves in the wonderful combination of emotionally charged music and extraordinary visuals, and leave filled with awe and wonder.
The Royal Albert Hall event will open with a pre-show Q&A featuring Ilan Eshkeri and special guest Tim Peake. Subsequent shows will feature different special guest astronauts: Andreas Mogensen in Denmark and Sweden, and Matthias Maurer at all three shows in Germany.
May 15th UK, London, Royal Albert Hall with special guest Tim Peake August 17th Denmark, Copenhagen, Royal Hall with special guest Andreas Mogensen August 19th Sweden, Rättvik, Dalhalla with special guest Andreas Mogensen October 7th Germany, Stuttgart, Porsche Arena with special guest Matthias Maurer October 8th Germany, Düsseldorf, Mitsubishi Electric Halle with special guest Matthias Maurer October 9th Germany, Bremen, OVB Arena with special guest Matthias Maurer
